Last week we wrapped up our annual Data Citizens conference. This conference brought together data leaders from around the world to share insights, network and imagine a brighter data future. The overarching theme of the conference was imagination and innovation — and this theme rang true throughout all of our mainstage presentations. In a time when AI is constantly challenging us, it is important to think fast and be adaptive so that we can innovate and grow in this dynamic environment. Over the course of three days, we challenged all our data citizens to rethink what AI means to them and their businesses, while also realizing new ways to increase efficiencies, ensure data reliability, and do more with trusted data.
It was an exciting week and we hope you were able to attend, but if not, here’s a quick recap of our great mainstage presentations.
How to Ignite a culture of innovation
We kicked off data citizens with an energizing presentation from keynote speaker, Duncan Wardle, former VP of Innovation & Creativity for the Walt Disney Company. He encouraged our data citizens to rethink the impossible and be open to new ideas. Through interactive demonstrations, he showed us that, in order to realize the level of success that Walt Disney achieved, we need to reframe our conversations from those that start with “no because” to those that begin with “yes and.” Duncan taught us all to change the way we think, be open to diverse ideas, and embrace change.
The imagination machine
In the opening keynote on Wednesday, Collibra co-founder Felix Van de Maele summarized our collective expectations for 2024 — the year of imagination.
If 2023 was the year that AI entered the mainstream and, for many businesses, represented the initial push into advanced AI investment, then 2024 will be the year when AI moves from experimentation into operationalization.
From the Harvard Business Review to Forbes to MIT, today’s headlines tout the promise of AI as a catalyst for creativity and innovation.
Indeed, as Felix said, everyone is talking about how we need to think differently about AI in 2024. To think faster. And to do so, we need more creativity and exploration. In the age of AI, we need to harness the power of human imagination.
The companies that can harness their teams’ imaginative energy, and couple it with the right data, will catapult past the competition.
But your organization will need trusted data to start, according to Felix. And the right data to drive your advanced AI initiatives.
Underpinning it all is data. Accurate, reliable data. Data that can be found. That can be used. And that can be understood and accessed. Most importantly, you’ll need data that can be trusted.
Learn more about how Collibra provides a foundation for AI with Collibra AI Governance.
The time is now for trusted data
Also on Wednesday, Collibra Chief Product Officer Laura Sellers took the stage to talk about why it’s never been a better time to be a CDAO or CDO.
Why? 94% of business leaders say they need to get more value from the data they have today, according to a recent Salesforce report.
As Laura suggested, it’s the equivalent of leaders from around your organization screaming from the rooftops that trusted data is needed.
In fact, 92% of analytics and IT leaders agree that the need for trustworthy data is higher than ever before.
That’s where the opportunity is for data leaders.
77% of CDOs are now driving business innovation with data, according to a recent CDO survey by Wavestone. This is up from 48% just three years ago
How are they doing it? Well, they’re getting more people involved with trusted data.
The reality is that twice as many CDOs today report they’ve established a culture around data and analytics, compared to two years ago.
So with more data, and more demand for data, Laura made it clear that there’s much more opportunity for data leaders thanks to AI and the continuing digitization of the world.
Now is truly the time to do more with trusted data.
Collibra innovations: our product announcements
After setting the stage and elaborating on the importance of trusted data, Laura invited various product managers on stage to present their new product innovations for The Collibra Data Intelligence Platform.
These innovations include:
- The general availability of Collibra AI Governance
- The launch of Collibra Data Notebook
- An updated user interface
- New generative AI features, collectively known as Collibra AI
This is just a high level overview of what is to come. To learn more about our new features, check out our press release here.
What will data be when it grows up?
We wrapped up Data Citizens ‘24 with an engaging presentation from Cassie Kozyrkov, CEO at Data Scientific and Google’s First Chief Decision Scientist. Cassie discussed the future of data, exploring its evolution and potential in a world where the speed and complexity of automation is accelerating and generative AI is driving a new user experience revolution that’ll reshape the data landscape. However, although Cassie acknowledged that the data landscape is changing, she emphasized the importance of human innovation over machine learning. She reassured all data citizens that AI is not the source of innovation, we are and that there is still a great need for data engineers, data scientists, and overall data citizens.
Data Citizens 24: Where data intelligence thrives
To recap: Data leaders from around the world gathered at Data Citizens 24 in Orlando, Florida to talk about how organizations can do more with trusted data in 2024 and beyond.
For their valuable support and partnership, we want to thank our pinnacle sponsors — AWS, Google Cloud and Infosys Topaz — as well as our premier partners: Accenture, Deloitte, Expleo, FSFP, PWC and SAP.
Our mission at Collibra continues to be crystal clear: To empower our customers with trusted data, so they can change the world. We hope everyone was as inspired this past week as we were and we look forward to sharing more of this content in the future.
Learn more about Data Citizens 24 and Collibra.
